The outlook for the sugar beet harvest in the Upper Snake River Valley that recently got started is better than last year, according to sugar company officials.

“The early harvest is showing positive results with an average of 17.4 percent sugar content and an estimated 39 tons plus per acre production,” said Pat Laubacher, Amalgamated Sugar Co. vice president of agriculture.

“Early harvest in the Upper Snake River and Magic Valley began Sept. 4,” Jessica McAnally, Amalgamated Sugar communications specialist, said last week.

McAnally said the full companywide harvest began Saturday.

The 2016 crop was considered exceptional, McAnally said.

“We broke company records on both yield and sugar content,” she said.

The 2017 crop wasn’t quite up to 2016, but it was still a good year, she said.

“We were able to process all the crop,” she said. “Amalgamated Sugar’s 2017 sugar beet crop averaged 39.2 tons per acre and 16.84 percent beet quality lab sugar content. This year, there was limited replant companywide,” she said. “So things are looking good.”

Amalgamated Sugar was formed in 1902 with the merging of the Ogden Sugar Co., the Logan Sugar Co., and the Oregon Sugar Co. It is the second-largest United States sugar beet processor behind the Minnesota-based American Crystal Sugar.

In 1997 the farmer cooperative, Snake River Sugar Co., purchased control of Amalgamated. More than 750 growers produce sugar beets on approximately 180,000 acres in Idaho, Oregon and Washington.

Amalgamated Sugar processing plants are located in Nampa, Paul and Twins Falls. A brown-sugar plant is in Nyssa, Ore.

The Liberty sugar beet receiving station, near Rockford, opened in 1997. Today, five pilers are in operation at Liberty with neighboring piling grounds in Blackfoot and Springfield.

With the sugar beet harvest now going full bore, growers are eager to get the job done.

“It will be good to get our beets out of the field,” said Bob Olsen, of Rich Lane Farms.

FORT COLLINS, Colo. — Colorado's past, present and future are all visible from Paul Schlagel's front porch just a few miles off Interstate 25 in Longmont.

A pristine view of Longs Peak and the Rocky Mountain range rests undisturbed to the west. Manufacturing and housing developments have inched closer from the east, and the once desolate Boulder County Road 20½ that runs by the farmhouse is now full of steady traffic.

A rotation of crops surrounding the homestead includes a field of sugar beets, which the Schlagel family has grown since they immigrated to Colorado with legions of other Germans from Russia in 1907. Paul and his son, Scott, lead the farming today, and a sixth generation of the Schlagel family arrived earlier this month.

"Sugar beets are part of our heritage but it's also deeper than that," said Paul, a 63-year-old lifelong farmer. "The sugar beet grower group is small, but we are dedicated to the sugar industry and keeping it going for generations."

These sugar beets are different than the purple vegetable often used in salads and championed on "The Office" by Dwight Schrute. When harvested, sugar beets are about a foot long and weigh 2 to 5 pounds.

The crop is solely grown to be converted into white table sugar — a scientific process once outlined on an episode of Sesame Street.

"We are getting as good a sugar beet crop as ever," Paul said. "And whatever you say about sugar, it is still a vital ingredient to cooking and does a lot more than just make stuff sweet."

The Schlagel family has grown sugar beets since it was Colorado's first true cash crop, populating the state in the 20th century with laborers from around the world and diversifying an economy previously reliant on mining and ranching. They've stuck with sugar beets as their importance in the state's economy has dwindled with fluctuating sugar commodities prices, a shrunken farm labor workforce and other industries emerging.

But now technological and research advancements have the Schlagels and other farmers growing sugar beets as efficiently as ever. Despite a diminishing amount of farmland dedicated to the crop, Colorado farmers produced more than 1 million tons of sugar beets last year for the first time since 2000.

"It is really a sustainability success story," said Rebecca Larson, the vice president and chief scientist for the Western Sugar Cooperative. "Technology has allowed us to not disturb the soil, not burn as much fuel and grow the sugar beets on fewer acres."

The biggest population growth Colorado would ever experience came around the turn of the 20th century, thanks to sugar beets.

An 1888 experiment conducted by Colorado State University precursor college Colorado A&M had determined that Colorado's soil and climate were ideal for growing sugar beets. When a German seed supplier visited the Fort Collins area shortly thereafter, Coloradoan archives say he predicted the area's real estate would double within a few years — little did he know what it would become today.

Immigrants came from various parts of the world to help plant, weed, harvest and labor in the sugar beet fields. Fort Collins grew from 3,000 residents in 1900 to more than 8,000 by 1910.

Similar growth came in the other Centennial State cities. Fort Morgan's population tripled within four years of its sugar beet industry starting, and the property prices there increased from $40 an acre to about $200 an acre.

"If you go back in history, sugar beets were the cash crop," Paul said. "They populated Colorado and built the railroads. ... People used to line up to work on your farm."

Great Western Sugar Co. processing plants popped up in more than 20 different Colorado cities — if your town had one, it was on the map.

Farmers would deliver their sugar beet harvest every fall so they could be converted into sugar crystals.

"The sugar beet crop was always the check to pay off the bank, all your bills and the farm," Paul said. "Everything else you grew was to feed your animals."

Processing plants previously operated in Fort Collins at 625 Ninth St., in the space just behind New Belgium Brewing that today houses the Fort Collins Street Department; in Windsor near the current intersection of First and Walnut streets; in Loveland at the intersection of Madison Avenue and East 11th Street; and in Greeley just east of U.S. Highway 85 at 1302 First Ave.

Sugar beet profitability began to wane in the 1950s. New regulations and competition from imported sugar cane hurt the industry.

Processing factories began to close across the state, many of which sit vacant today. Great Western Sugar Co. eventually declared bankruptcy in 1985.

In Fort Collins, a lone remnant of the factory stands over the Poudre River in Kingfisher Point Natural Area today. The suspension flume bridge that was built in 1926 to dump excess waste from the factory into a field was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2014.

The Choice City, however, has remained influential in the world of sugar beets.

A U.S. Department of Agriculture research facility was started in the 1920s to combat disease outbreaks and has continued to operate ever since. A breeding line first developed here during the 1980s is now used around the world because it is resistant to a harmful fungus called Rhizoctonia.

Of all the past Colorado sugar factories, only Fort Morgan — which started operating in 1906 — remains active.

"There are a lot of factors that come into play, but location is probably the best reason (why Fort Morgan remains)," said Rodney Perry, Western Sugar Cooperative's president and CEO. "Fort Morgan sits in the middle of the beet growing region from the Front Range out to Yuma."

It was pitch black at 4 a.m. as Paul and Scott looked to plant their 2018 sugar beet crop before an impending storm this April. Both grew up working in the fields, hauling loads of sugar beets before school during the harvest months.

"I would tell people I knew how to drive a tractor when I was 5 years old," said a smirking Scott, now 32.

Sugar beet planting used to require horse-drawn power. Then it evolved to gas tractors, where drivers had to alternate looking forward and back in an attempt to plant a straight row.

But now the planting is done much more smoothly with GPS technology. The advancement has emerged as a common farming tool over the past decade.

"You've always wanted people to drive by your farm and say, 'Oh those are pretty straight rows,'" Paul said. "I was never that good at it. They were always slightly crooked.

"Now they are always straight."

GPS technology is also used in harvesting, fertilizing, herbicide application and sprinkler watering as computers now handle the bulk of farming chores.

Another major advancement in the sugar beet industry was the introduction of Roundup Ready seeds in 2008 — which means the plant is not harmed by the application of herbicides. Roundup Ready seeds have helped farmers increase sugar beet yields from an average of 8,000 pounds of sugar per acre to 13,000.

"It revolutionized how people farm with sugar beets," Larson said. "Before it was really hard to control weeds. Spraying herbicides killed those weeds but also would have an impact on the beets."

But "today, we don't have weeds, period," Paul added.

More advancements could be coming from the USDA sugar beet research facility in Fort Collins. Multi-year studies on enhancing yields and protecting sugar beets from plant pathogens are currently underway.

Scientists test plant breeding and study the compounds of wild sugar beet varieties. The more efficient seeds development mean less costly chemicals farmers need to apply.

The Fort Collins USDA site has made more than 120 study releases since 1961.

"We are trying to help the American farmer," said USDA sugar beet research technician Travis Vagher. "By limiting the amount of chemicals used, it increases their bottom line."

Much of the farming progress has been aimed at efficiency and making up for a limited workforce pool. It has the Schlagels and other sugar beet farmers optimistic about the future of the storied crop.

A 2017 agreement with the government of Mexico could help increase prices of U.S. sugar, a product that's purchased years in advance. There are now restrictions on how much Mexico can import to the U.S.

There are still some challenges.

Western Sugar Cooperative was fined $2 million by the state of Colorado in May for air, water and health violations at the Fort Morgan plant — odor complaints ran rampant in the city last year. The cooperative has agreed to clean up its issues.

But as the ups and downs of growing Colorado's first cash crop continue, generational sugar beet farmers remain committed to growing it.

"We have made great strides," Paul said. "We have been on this exact farm for more than 50 years and things have changed a lot."

Advances in technology have drastically changed the way the sugar beet is planted, grown, harvested and the beet itself.

Beets now don’t have to be thinned, a labor-intensive job done by hand years ago. Today, one seed produces one shoot, so each seed is planted at the preferred spacing. Seeds also are herbicide and disease resistant.

Duffin has been executive director of the organization for 27 years which has about 540 members in Idaho. He grew up in Aberdeen where his parents and grandparents raised sugar beets.

The number of acres planted each year, of approved seed varieties, varies each year and is determined by the Amalgamated Sugar Co., because of the limited number of sugar factories that can process sugar beets.

“All beets need a home to go to — to be processed. It’s not an open market,” Duffin said. “The co-op adjusts the acreages up and down depending on the need.”

Today, there are just three sugar beet factories compared to years ago when many eastern Idaho towns had factories. In the early 1900s, Sugar City was created by the Fremont County Sugar Co., according to sugarcityidaho.gov. The company was part of the Utah-Idaho Sugar Co. and was built as farms and ranches were being established in the Upper Snake River Valley, according to the website. The town, which eventually grew to over 1,000 people, was platted close to the factory, which was built in 1904. The sugar factory closed in 1942 and dismantled, the website stated, but in its heyday it shipped sugar with the widely recognized U&I brand name to national markets via the Union Pacific Railroad.

“There’s a long history of sugar beet growing in east Idaho and northern Utah which pretty much shut down in the 1970s,” Duffin said. “It was pretty painful for those communities.”

After the co-op was founded in the 1990s some growers wanted to get back into sugar beet farming but it often if wasn’t cost effective to haul long distances to the remaining sugar factories.

Even so, there are still some farmers who grow beets in eastern Bingham County and haul to the receiving stations near Blackfoot, Rockford and Springfield, Duffin said.

The industry contributes about $2 billion to Idaho’s economy.

“It’s a very significant impact,” he said.

And the impact is felt locally too. Many who work only during the sugar beet harvest each fall enjoy the extra income, including Margaret Turpin, of Thomas, who has worked at both Liberty and the Blackfoot receiving stations. The housewife and mother of 10 has worked during beet harvest since 1997, when the Liberty station first opened. The Blackfoot station opened in 2010. For Turpin and others, the extra income comes in handy for Christmas gifts, bills, home improvements or even travel, she said.

“It’s a little extra income for us and we feel rich for a little while,” she said.

While the extra spending money is welcome, friendships made on the job are the biggest treasure.

“We keep coming back because of the friendships we make, sometimes we don’t see each other again until the next harvest, but we enjoy each other and working together,” she said.

Because the days can be long there’s little time for anything else. Depending on the weather, a typical day begins around 6:30 a.m. and ends at around 8:30 p.m., six days a week. Turpin’s first job was taking samples as beets are unloaded. Today, she weighs in the trucks that unload at the rate of about one every 2 minutes.

“We are there to meet the needs of the growers and they need to roll as many trucks as they can so they can to get their crop in. We are there to help in any way we can,” she said.

Turpin and many employees take personal pride in their work, even though the days are long and the work is repetitious.

“Beets are kinda fun, the whole community comes together during beet harvest (to the receiving stations). It’s a busy, humming place,” she said.

The sugar beet harvest in northern Wyoming is nearing completion with about 70 percent of the crop in hand on Friday.

Western Sugar Cooperative senior agriculturist Mark Bjornestad says tonnage is going to be just under 29 tons (26.3 metric tons) per acre. Tonnage had been forecast to come in at a record 31 tons (28.1 metric tons) per acre in the Lovell factory district.

But Bjornestad tells the Powell Tribune that the sugar content of the beets is looking to hit a record high at nearly 18 percent on average with some growers reporting 20 percent sugar.

Cold and snow slowed the harvest some over the weekend but growers resumed harvesting this week.

Bjornestad says the harvest in the Lovell district should be 90 percent done by week's end.

The USDA National Agricultural Statistics Service released the latest Crop Progress report on Tuesday. In the report, harvest progress updates where given for the country's top four sugarbeet producing states, which accounted for 83% of the sugarbeet production in the U.S. in 2017.

North Dakota now leads with way with 45% of their crop harvested. That is up from 20% the previous week, but behind last year’s mark of 56%. The five-year average is 54%.

Not far behind is Minnesota at 41% harvested. They made tremendous progress from just 18% the week before. Their current pace is up from 38% at this point last year, but slightly behind the five-year average of 46%.

Idaho and Michigan are both at 34%, which matches the pace Idaho was at last year. It is also slightly above the five-year average of 29% for the Gem State.

Michigan is also ahead of their 2017 harvest progress of 28% and their five-year average of 22%. Last week, the Michigan crop was 30% harvested.

Harvest in nearly all of North Dakota and Minnesota has been shut down this week due to heavy rain, followed by accumulating snow. While temperatures remain around 25-35 degrees, things are supposed to warm up next week and growers are hopeful they can get back in the fields.

Still, sugar beet and soybean farmer Scott Johnson is optimistic about the harvest.

"We're just hoping for some sunshine and warm weather," said Johnson, who has crops near Manvel, N.D., just north of Grand Forks.

Snow blanketed much of North Dakota on Wednesday.

Grand Forks saw 5.7 inches while other places, like Larimore down to Valley City, reported more than a foot, according to the National Weather Service.

"Harvest will be a real challenge," said Brian Bjork of Forman, who had at least 8 inches of wet snow on his soybeans.

Randy Grueneich, North Dakota State University Extension agent for Barnes County, which had some of the heaviest snow, said few acres of soybeans have been combined in his area.

"There's a lot of anxiety right now," he said.

Farmers, however, are still hopeful, Grueneich said, with the long-term forecast appearing to be more positive for harvesting.

"There's still a lot of harvest left," said. Roger Holznagel, who works in agronomy and sales at Missouri Valley Ag Inc., in Sterling, east of Bismarck. "Crops here are actually looking really good. It's just the moisture for harvest is not quite as welcome this year."

Nancy Johnson, executive director the North Dakota Soybean Growers Association said North Dakota had about 34 percent of the crop off the fields as of Sunday, according to the latest report from the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Last year at that time, 40 percent of the state's soybeans were in the bin, and this year's count is far behind the five-year average of 50 percent, the USDA said.

The soybean harvest in Minnesota was 37 percent completed as of Sunday, ahead of last year's completion rate of 21 percent but behind the five-year average of 45 percent, the USDA said.

The first two days of the sugar beet harvest, which officially began Oct. 1, presented ideal conditions for harvesters. Then rain started to fall Oct. 3, slowly wetting the fields and eventually keeping farmers from fieldwork.

The snow will delay harvest even more, said Brian Ingulsrud, vice president of agriculture for American Crystal Sugar Co.

"It's very frustrating that we're not able to keep the harvest going," he said.

The Red River Valley had about 44 percent of its sugar beets harvested as of Wednesday, he said, slightly behind schedule compared with other years.

The wet weather shouldn't affect the quality of beets, but the plants will have more mud to clean off.

Jen Peterson-Ross of Crookston, Minn., said her farm has sugar beets and soybeans still in the field. They have harvested "some, but definitely not enough," she said.

She took an unusual photo on Oct. 10. Instead of beet diggers and trucks in the field, there was a snowmobile pulling a sled. Even with the difficult conditions, she's hopeful they'll get back in the field soon.

This year’s beet harvest in southern Idaho and eastern Oregon could set record highs for sugar content and yield, thanks in part to good growing conditions and limited disease and insect pressure.

Lab measurement of samples as of early October pegged average sugar content at 17.4 percent, Amalgamated Sugar Co. Communications Specialist Jessica McAnally said. Last year’s average was 16.84 percent.

Boise-based Amalgamated, a grower-owned cooperative, aims for 18 percent average sugar content company-wide, achieved just once previously, she said. The number represents the percentage of sugar in the beet, which contains mostly water.

Average sugar content was expected to move higher barring bad weather, McAnally said. Beets store more sugar in their roots as harvest progresses and air temperatures drop, though heavy rain can prompt the plants to devote more energy to growing and less to producing sugar.

Boise received 0.95 inch of rain Oct. 9, the National Weather Service reported. Some spots in the region received over an inch.

“I’m afraid it will hurt sugar content going forward,” said Mitch Bicandi, a grower near Notus, in southwestern Idaho. “If we got another storm like this in the next week to 10 days, it would be really bad. We hope this is it.”

Before the rain, southwest Idaho beets showed higher sugar content than in the past, he said. “We’re just hoping they will hold.”

Bicandi, who plans to start harvesting Oct. 15, said growers whose harvest was underway Oct. 9 probably were shut down until late Oct. 10. But those who previously felt conditions were too try to dig may have seen some benefit from the rain, which amounted to around a day’s worth of irrigation, he said. Harvest typically wraps up by early November.

Beet growth and sugar production are helped by a long growing season with hot, dry days and cool nights. Disease risk rises when there is too much moisture in foliage.

“We have had an excellent growing season, and while we have seen some disease pressure, it has not been as bad as some years,” McAnally said. “We also have increased quality available in seed varieties available to our growers.”

On the pest and disease front, “overall we are pretty happy,” said Oliver Neher, plant health manager with Amalgamated. The Treasure Valley of southwestern Idaho and southeastern Oregon had a bit more Cercospora Leaf Spot than the company would like, but it was a “very normal” year for powdery mildew and Looper insects, without severe infestations, he said.

McAnally said the approximately 750 growers who comprise Amalgamated parent cooperative Snake River Sugar Co. will produce about 182,000 acres of sugar beets this year, about the same as 2017. Last year’s yield averaged 39.2 tons per acre.

Board President Duane Grant, who co-owns 4-D Farms in Rupert, in south central Idaho, said yield per acre is expected to be up from a year ago by 1.5 to 2 tons per acre, or around 5 percent.

“We believe we are going to set a yield record and a sugar-content record this year,” he said Oct. 9. “That is a credit to our growers, who have agreed to share with each other their cultural practices, reporting them into the company.” Such sharing “lets us learn from each other how to improve our collective crop.”

Nitrogen management is an example.

“Our growers have learned to very carefully analyze the fertility content of the top three or four feet of soil and apply just the right amount of fertilizer to grow the crop, but still allow it to consume available fertilizer and mature in a fertilizer-depleted environment,” Grant said. Beets maturing amid excess fertilizer grow root mass but do not accumulate sugar, he said.

Advances in seed genetics this decade played a major role in increasing the productivity of the plant, and in turn boosting sugar content and yield, he said.

Grant said the 2018 growing season featured a cool start, and a hot summer stretch with high temperatures on the upper end of their historic range — including “quite a few days of extreme temperatures over 100. We were concerned the heat would mineralize a lot of fertilizer in the ground.”

Mineralizing organic nitrogen would create an environment that is too fertile, prompting beets to add mass without accumulating sugar as effectively, he said. This did not happen to the extent beets gained mass and yield while losing quality, though “it did mineralize nitrogen. You could actually see sugar beet fields green up as we moved to the end of July into early August.”

As for the Oct. 9 rain, he said an inch or more can reduce sugar content as beets soak up water, which also may add to transport and processing costs.

McAnally said early “pre-pile” harvest started Sept. 4 in south-central Idaho, and east in the Upper Snake River region, so Amalgamated plants in Twin Falls and Paul could begin processing the new crop. In southwest Idaho, harvest began on a limited basis Oct. 1 and production at the 500-employee Nampa plant started Oct. 4.

The plants run year-round, and process sugar beets from fall to as late as March or early April.

Although many areas were closed due to weather for three days last week, sugar beet harvest is ahead of schedule for Sidney Sugars.

Sidney Sugars’ agricultural manager Duane Peters said some areas were closed on Thursday through Saturday, but they kept busy because Pleasant View and Powder River were able to operate. “They didn’t get the moisture,” Peters noted.

Savage and Sugar Valley returned to activity on Sunday.

Peters said the average sugar content average is at about 17 percent.

The average tonnage is about 31.5 tons per acre.

“The tons are bouncing all over the place,” Peters said.

He noted that some farms are averaging 40 tons an acre.

“It’s few and far between,” Peters said. “But you’re seeing them up and down the district. There’s not a whole lot, but I think we have a field like that in every district.”

As of early Monday morning 42 percent of harvest had been completed.

“It’s unheard of on Oct. 8, in Sidney,” Peters said of having 42 percent done.

In Montana and northern Wyoming, the sugarbeet industry continues to be a very important driver for local economies. And the early sugarbeet harvest is underway for both Western Sugar Cooperative and Sidney Sugars growers.

“Economics of the sugarbeet business have been very good for all my life” said Ervin Schlemmer, a sugarbeet farmer from Joliet, MT. “Sugarbeets have been the mortgage lifter on a lot of farms. We’ve had some tough times; but we’ve also had some very good times.”

For Western Sugar Cooperative grower Schlemmer, this year marks his 46th sugarbeet harvest. He says even with the ups and downs of the industry, harvest is still one of his favorite times of the year.

“I love digging sugarbeets and I love the smell of sugarbeets” said Schlemmer. “It’s one of those businesses where we raise a lot of other crops too but the sugarbeet business is kind of in my blood. I’ve been involved with the politics of sugar and I know it from one end to the other.”

He says this year’s crop will probably average in the low 30’s as for tonnage per acre; a little bit less than what Western Sugar is projecting as a whole in Montana and Wyoming. He attributes severe weather as the culprit.

“It’s a good average crop this year; at least in the Clarks Fork Valley” said Schlemmer. “I think some areas that didn’t receive hail have an excellent crop. Like I said, it’s not going to be as good as a crop as last year or even the year before; but it’s looks like we’re going to be happy with it.”

Duane Peters, Ag Manager for Sidney Sugars says growers along the Lower Yellowstone are also pleased with this year’s sugarbeet crop.

“Right now, the crop is looking good” said Peters. “We anticipate a ton at the end of the year of 32.5 tons per acre. We just ran our first sugars test and it came back 17.3 percent. Which is about .6 to .7 above the average. So, we’re very happy to see sugar content this high for this time of the year.”

Schlemmer says when sugarbeet growers have a good year, so does Montana’s overall economy.

“In Montana a lone it’s a $50 million business that’s put into our local economies, our small towns and our downtown businesses” said Schlemmer. “It doesn’t matter if you’re the co-op or the grocery store, the sugarbeet business is what helps feed this valley.”

According to the Montana Ag Statistics Service says sugarbeet acreage in Montana is 42,700 or the same as 2017 while in Wyoming it’s 30,900 acres or down 700 acres from 2017.

This year’s full sugarbeet harvest for both Western Sugar Cooperative and Sidney Sugars will begin the first week of October.

The USDA National Agricultural Statistics Service released the latest Crop Progress report on Monday. In the report, harvest progress updates where given for the country's top four sugarbeet producing states.

Michigan leads the way with 30% of their crop harvested. That is up from 27% last week and up six percent from this point last year. It is also up from the five-year average of 17%.

Idaho currently has 25% of its crop harvested, which is behind last year's mark of 31%, but ahead of the five-year average of 22%. Last week, 23% percent of the crop was out of the ground.

Stockpile harvest for American Crystal and Minn-Dak is now in full swing, which has helped North Dakota growers reach 20% of their sugarbeet crop harvested as of September 30th. That is slightly behind last year's mark of 21% and the five-year average of 22%. Last week, the Peace Garden State had 14% of its crop harvest.

The country's largest sugarbeet producing state, Minnesota, has harvested 18%. That is ahead of 2017's pace of 16%, but behind the five-year average of 20%. Minnesota growers have harvested seven percentage points since last week.

The Amalgamated Sugar factory is wrapping up their control harvest, It's when they manage the amount of sugar beets that go into the factory from September through Oct. 5.

Their regular harvest starts on Oct. 6, and the company is competing against mother nature to meet their harvest deadline by Nov. 1.

"We're in a race to beat the first hard freeze," said plant manager Jorge Devarona. "Through the month of October and the first week of November we're stacking all the excess beets at the factory."

The company will be shifting gears, more delivery trucks will be out on the roadways.

"We all gotta be aware of is that these trucks are typically going a lot slower than normal traffic," said Twin Falls District Ag Manager David Scantlin. "You have to be careful of approaching them from the back. The other thing is they're entering from non-typical places on the road."

Transystems LLC in Twin Falls is the contractor's company. Over dozens of trucks will be delivering sugar beets over the next month.

"All those trucks have an extra flashing light on the back trying to alert other motorist that they are traveling slower than they are and to use caution," Scantlin said.

The company is inspecting a sweet and prosperous harvest season. Scantlin recommends the public to keep a safe distance between the truck because they can't break as easily as other vehicles.

The sugar beet harvest is about to go full steam ahead, and Red River Valley farmers are set up to see higher yields than expected at planting, officials said.

Harvesters will go into full gear today, hauling sugar beets from fields to factories in Drayton, N.D., Hillsboro, N.D., East Grand Forks, Crookston and Moorhead. North Dakota is expected to produce 6.46 million tons of sugar beets, up slightly from last year, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture's latest crop production report published Sept. 12. Though the area for harvest is slightly down from last year, yields could hit a record high of 30.9 tons per acre, up a half ton per acre from 2017, the USDA said.

"Projected yield is looking good," said Brian Ingulsrud, vice president of agriculture at American Crystal Sugar Co.

At planting season, farmers in the valley expected sugar beet yields of less than 30 tons per acre, Ingulsrud said. Higher-than-normal temperatures helped boost yields throughout the growing season.

He estimated the valley could see yields of about 30.7 tons per acre, which still is above average. The valley has seen a continued uptick in yields over the years in part because of improved genetics, he noted.

"Our trend on yield keeps going higher," he said.

The USDA estimated Minnesota will produce 12 million tons, down about 4 percent from last year. Yields could hit 30.1 tons per acre, up 0.8 tons from the Aug. 1 estimate but down a half ton per acre from last year's yields, the USDA said.

The northern part of the valley could see higher sugar content in beets than in the south, Ingulsrud said. That's likely due to drier conditions, he said.

"Those drier conditions do result in higher sugar content," he said. "We're seeing sugar content above 19 percent in the northern parts of the valley."

Sugar content from beets in the southern portions of the valley likely will be average, Ingulsrud said, adding factories are reporting 17 percent sugar content for the crop in the south.

SCOTTSBLUFF — The early sugar beet harvest is underway, as farmers begin digging up and hauling their crops in for processing.

Gary Stone, an extension educator at Panhandle Research and Extension Center, said 2018 was a good year for sugar beet growth.

“We had plenty of water for the crop,” Stone said. “The temperatures, for the most part, were just about right, maybe a little higher than normal. Fields that didn’t get hail certainly did well.”

Stone added that the early harvest has on. “They bring the beets in and put them in a pile,” he said, “and those beets are still a living organism and they’re perspiring. If they get too hot, they start to rot.”

Jerry Darnell, an agronomist at Western Sugar, said that, as of Sept. 27, the early crop is averaging 16.1 percent sugar content, on track for the estimated 17.7 percent, and 1.39 sugar losses to molasses, and averaging 33.5 tons per acre. Roughly 12 percent, or 5,500 acres, have been harvested so far. Full harvest is expected to begin Oct. 6, when the weather is cool enough for Western Sugar to pile the beets.

Today, the Steffans grow for Sidney Sugars, a wholly-owned subsidiary of American Crystal Sugar Co., a farmer-owned cooperative based in Moorhead, Minn. The company has about 110 growers, ranging from Miles City to Culbertson in Montana, to Fairview, N.D.

"It's drier than we thought it was going to be for this early in the game," Steffan said. Sugar contents at that early date were running 17 percent to 18 percent, which Steffan said is "phenomenal for this early in the game."

Sidney Sugars' pre-pile or "early harvest" started Sept. 10, with the factory starting processing Sept. 12. David Garland, general manager since 2012, is pleased, so far.

"I think with the size crop — the 1-million-plus (ton) sized crop — the early start is essential and beneficial to us slicing all of our beets and having a good run at our factory," Garland said.

Garland says the acreage will come in at 32,600 harvest acres. The company then was projecting a 32.25- to 32.5-tons-per-acre yield, which Garland said is becoming the "new standard" and will result in about 1 million tons.

The 2018 crop year started wet and grew drier at the end, supplemented by irrigation, says Duane Peters, Sydney Sugars' agricultural manager. The rain also provided good rotation crops — wheat yields in the area were a strong 70 to 100 bushels per acre. Non-irrigated wheat produced 60 bushels an acre, and farmers saw good hay crops, at 5.5 to 6 tons per acre on irrigated land. Corn is looking good.

For the beets, a wetter year led to more rhizoctonia root and crown rot, despite good genetics and chemical control. The seedling stand was excellent and appears to offer potential for good sugar content.

Sidney Sugars contracted 33,000 acres, so it was bringing in 3,500 acres in the early harvest. The factory processes all of those beets and then starts fresh with the full-scale harvest, scheduled to begin Sept. 26, assuming temperatures are cool. Oct. 1 is the deadline to start all receiving stations.

Sidney Sugars projects to be done with slice on Feb. 20 and to be done with processing by the end of February.

Peters, who has been with the company for three years, said producers are on more solid footing with their future ability to irrigate. Farmers and the community have backed a "fish bypass/weir" to help the pallid sturgeon reproduce on the Yellowstone River. The planned $59 million irrigation project is designed to allow irrigation water to flow, serving crops on 55,000 acres. The issue has been mired in federal funding and legal challenges.

"Farmers, the irrigation district and the whole community wanted to show people that, we're here to help the fish but also we need the water," Peters said.

Steffan said the irrigation solution was a lifeline.

"If we'd have lost that, I don't know what we'd have raised," he said. "The factory would have been gone. I've drilled wells, but I don't know how long they'd have lasted without the irrigation here to keep filling the aquifer."

Capital outlays

Mike Steffan and his son, Jeff, harvest beets just north of the Sidney (Mont.) Sugars Inc. factory

As confidence grows, growers invest in their production and the company moves ahead with capital improvements. In the past year, the company installed a in a new "pebbled lime system," in its sugar purification system. Garland declined to indicate the investment amount.

In sugar processing, calcium oxide (lime) is used in what's known as a non-sugar removal process. Lime is commonly produced in the lime kiln where limerock (CaCO3) is burned transforming the rock into lime (CaO) and carbon dioxide (CO2). The Sidney factory adds water to the lime to make a lime slurry. They add the lime slurry to the juice purification system after which the CO2 is reintroduced, capturing non-sugars, and settles out as a solid.

When processing fresh beets in the fall, the Sidney factory initially needs to add less lime to produce a high quality juice, Garland said. But as beets start to deteriorate in storage, additional lime is needed to counteract the deterioration.With the new Pebbled Lime System, additional lime will be available to maintain a steady slice rate and reduce sugar losses throughout the campaign.

SESVanderHave and Holly Seed sign new cooperation agreement with changes to North American sales organization and seed processing activities.

SESVanderHave USA, Inc., Fargo, ND, and Holly Seed, LLC, Sheridan, WY, along with their respective parent organizations, SESVanderHave NV, Tienen, Belgium, and Southern Minnesota Beet Sugar Company, Renville, MN, announce that they have entered into a new Service and Cooperation Agreement.​SESVanderHave USA and Holly Seed share a lengthy and strong relationship within the North American sugarbeet industry and will continue this relationship under a new structure.

Holly Seed will continue to provide seed processing and other manufacturing services to SESVanderHave for all of its seed distributed within North America. In turn, SESVanderHave will acquire the sales staff of Holly Seed, their dealer networks, and will now supply seed to the entire North American sugarbeet market.

“The new agreement allows both organizations to focus on their strengths while at the same time bringing quality products to the sugarbeet producers throughout the North American market,” says Steve Domm, president and chief executive officer of Southern Minnesota Beet Sugar Cooperative.

SESVanderHave will now control the marketing services for the North American market. Rob Van Tetering, chief executive officer of SESVanderHave NV is excited about the new opportunities, stating: “We are looking forward to bringing one message and one focus to the sugarbeet growers within the United States and Canada for our genetics. With the experienced sales staff of Holly Seed on board, we will focus on reintroducing ourselves to the sugar cooperatives throughout the United States, their shareholders and growers. After nearly 30 years of cooperation with Holly Seed, our strong relationship continues.”

SESVanderHave NV is one of the leading suppliers of sugarbeet seed genetics worldwide and staffs over 600 employees, including the United States, for providing varieties to North American growers.

Southern Minnesota Beet Sugar Cooperative is a manufacturer of sugar from sugarbeets. Annually its 500 Shareholders harvest some 3.6M tons of beets and process them in their Renville, Minnesota factory.

​Holly Seed is an experienced seed processor within the unique sugarbeet crop and provides high-quality seeds to the North American market.

September 18, 2018 [Toronto, ON] - Vive Crop Protection has been selected by The Lazaridis Institute to participate in The Lazaridis Scale-Up Program. The program, funded by the founder of Blackberry, Mike Lazaridis, is focused on training management of rapidly growing Canadian companies so that they can be successful global champions.

The Lazaridis Institute has chosen 10 Canadian companies that have demonstrated the potential to dominate their markets and are ready to take the next steps to grow globally.

Keith Thomas, CEO of Vive Crop Protection will participate in each session, along with Vive leadership team members. Thomas says, “This is a tremendous honor and opportunity for Vive Crop Protection. We are in the rapid growth phase of our company and appreciate the world-class information and mentorship we will receive in the Lazaridis Scale-Up Program.”

He continues, “I am frequently asked what keeps me awake at night. It is managing through high growth. This program is what we - and Canada - need.”

The Lazaridis Scale-Up Program supports companies by helping them scale-up globally. It is focused on solving a specific national challenge - the need for more globally competitive technology companies in Canada. The innovative program, now in its third year, helps emerging companies achieve global success by providing critical resources, including one-on-one time with international business experts, 120 hours with dedicated growth specialists, and access to a national peer group of entrepreneurs.

A growing interest in knowing where our food comes from and how it's produced has the agriculture industry doing what it can to educate the public about farming. As Quinn Campbell reports, a new campaign sprouting up in southern Alberta is doing just that. (globalnews.ca)

After 2- to 4-inch rains the week after Labor Day, the co-op set the new pre-pile harvest to start Sept. 7. The factory started slicing beets on Sept. 10. Full-scale harvest starts Oct. 1.

The Groothuis (pronounced GROW-tus) family raises 1,000 acres of corn and 500 acres each of soybeans and sugar beets, and do some custom harvesting work.

"The whole year has been wet," Groothuis says. "It's been such big rains. These have been 3, 4-, 5-, 6-, 8- and 10-inch rains. They just haven't shut off."

Groothuis hopes for heat and wind and is optimistic about being able to get into the fields for harvest. Some farmers in his area have been picking corn for silage and getting through the fields. Some farmers who grew sweet corn for the canning market made some ruts.

Groothuis acquired a new side-dump semi-trailer that is designed for sugar beets and allows harvest with fewer workers. The farm also has end-dump trucks that can do double-duty with corn harvest.

Corn looks inconsistent, Groothius says, hoping for 150 bushels an acre, which would compare to a 200-plus average. Soybean yields could be over 60 bushels per acre, Groothius says, following on 50s. "In this area, the beans look the best."

Southern Minnesota Beet Sugar officials peg the beet crop at 20 to 25 tons per acre, with the sugar content in the "mid 13" percent range, which is not good.

"The rain always seems to zap the sugar," Groothuis says. He says he doesn't think his own neighborhood has even average beets for the cooperative. In the past few years, he's been raising 25- to 30-tons per acre.

Groothuis' beets have been beset by diseases. He plants disease-resistant beets, sprays them faithfully, but when the water doesn't turn off, there is nothing the farmer can do. Root rots and cercospora leaf spot have persisted, despite faithful spraying.

The vagaries of farming aren't new to Groothuis, and he seems to take it in stride..

He took two years of vocational training in Willmar, Minn., and then worked 13 years for a farmer. In 1989, he and his wife, Danelle, started farming with his father-in-law, Robert Olson, and Robert's brother, Maurice Olson, who farmed together at the time. They were some of the early producers in the beet co-op.

The Groothuis family still farms under the R&M Farms banner. Their son, Nick, recently graduated from South Dakota State University and works at a local implement dealer and also helps out during the busy times.